The Trump administration on Friday proposed a new set of cargo taxes on goods entering the United States as part of a sweeping plan to revitalize domestic commercial shipbuilding capacity and port infrastructure.
To help fund shipyard improvements, the administration wants to impose a new fee on all foreign-built commercial vessels bringing merchandise into U.S. ports.
The tax would be assessed based on the weight of imported tonnage; the “Maritime Action Plan” doesn’t specify the rate of tax, leaving the details for later. The report offers a range of possibilities, from a 1-cent-per-kilogram tax, raising $66 billion over a decade, to a 25-cent tax raising $1.5 trillion.
